


How do we survive (to make amends)

by demigodscum



Series: All Your Troubles [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angry Tony, Angst, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Canon, sad Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 04:58:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16422833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demigodscum/pseuds/demigodscum
Summary: A welcome back gone sour.





	How do we survive (to make amends)

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly don't know what this is. I just wanted Toni to be angry and commiserate with me.
> 
> Title from Jilted Lovers by The Naked and Famous.

The return to Earth is all around excruciating: excruciatingly long, excruciatingly stressful, excruciatingly lonesome.

Nebula stays silent the whole time, leaving her to drown in the turmoil of her thoughts. And she does, for a while. She replays the battle over and over and over again, until her lips begin echoing Peter’s voice, until a scream rips itself out of her throat to resonate through the ship.

It leaves her tired, exhausted, but she can’t sleep because when she closes her eyes, all she sees is Strange’s flickering form, all she hears is Quill asking about Gamora, all she feels is the empty space around her, trying to claw off her nanobots one by one to leave her exposed, _like a nerve_.

In the last hour or so of the trip, she manages to calm down a little. As much as possible given the situation, anyway.

She loses it again when she sees him.

As they enter the outermost layer of Earth’s atmosphere, she succeeds in reconnecting with FRIDAY, who directs them to Wakanda.

“ _I_ _t’s bad, Boss_ ,” she says, but Toni wasn’t expecting anything else.

“ _T’Challa’s gone_ ,” she says, but Toni isn’t surprised by anything now.

Except, perhaps, her welcome committee.

A girl— _Princess Shuri_ _(or is it Queen now?)—_ is standing to one side, Romanoff to the other. Front and center is the only face she wants to see: Rhodey’s, tired and worn but with a soft smile and shiny eyes.

She sprints across the field they landed on, closes the distance between them in a couple of seconds. As soon as she can, Toni buries her face in his neck, wraps her arms around his waist and _squeezes_ , trying to be mindful of the fact that she has the suit still on.

But Rhodey squeezes back, holds her tightly enough that she feels it through the armor.

“ _Rhodey_ ,” she whimpers.

“I know, baby. I know.”

Her periphery registers Romanoff and Shuri speaking to Nebula, but it’s not until she senses FRIDAY trying to warn her, not until she hears her name be called, that she opens her eyes.

Over Rhodey’s shoulder, Toni spots a figure walking towards them. She recognizes the broad shoulders, the narrow hips, the fisted hands.

She doesn’t recognize the facial hair, the hesitant voice, the relieved expression.

Toni had expected that, when they finally met again, it would be under dire circumstances that would unite them, drive them together, force them to put aside their differences.

That’s not what happens.

What happens is that the moment she sees Steve’s face, wrought with something oddly akin to gratitude and affection, the moment his arms begin rising as if to reach for her, the repulsors start whining without her command, the helmet comes up to cover her face.

“Toni?” Rhodey asks, pulling back to cradle her armored jaw in his palms. “Toni, honey, look at me. You have to calm down. You’re safe, no one is going to hurt you. Toni, _look at me_.”

But she can’t, she can’t, because the HUD is flashing red, because between that and the sight of Steve’s increasingly horrified expression, all she sees is Peter vanishing in her arms, the tiny screen of a flip phone, an empty and ruined Compound, her mother dying, her mother being murdered, _her mother_.

All she hears, beyond the furious beating of her heart, is his shield beating her to pieces.

She can’t calm down, doesn’t want to. The repulsors whine louder, the reactor—a new one because _he shattered her old one_ —begins winding up, and FRIDAY tells her, trepidatiously, that firepower is ready for use.

_I don’t wanna go. I’m sorry._

“Antonia, _stand down_. FRIDAY, do _not_ let her engage. Everyone, _leave_.”

_I can see now that I was really sparing myself, and I’m sorry_.

“Let her, Rhodes.”

_Toni, there was no other way_.

“Are you serious? Natasha, get him out of here.”

_Howard_.

The first blast misses him by an inch; Rhodey is trying to pull her back using his hold on her shoulders.

“Steve, _go away_. FRIDAY, override. Do whatever you need to. Get me my suit.”

The second blast misses him again, this time because he throws himself to the ground.

The third blast gets redirected far off because someone tackles her down.

“Hey, don’t hurt her!”

“Rhodes, she’s out of control.”

“Get away, I’ll do it myself.”

Toni’s just getting back to her feet after having shaken Nebula off her when someone else, much stronger and heavier, knocks her down again.

“Baby girl, stay down. This ain’t a fight. You’re safe.” She recognizes the War Machine mask hovering over her. The red on the HUD washes away, and the nanobots respond accordingly, killing the repulsors and relaxing the fight stance. “You’re safe,” he repeats, “Open the faceplate for me.”

She does, only because it’s Rhodey, only because he’s the only one she trusts. And then he opens his, and she’s looking into his dark eyes, worried and gentle, and she breaks down once more.

A sob escapes her. “He hurt me.”

Rhodey’s face crumples, furrows into what she remembers was the same gesture he made when she told him her parents were dead.

“I know, baby. I’m sorry,” he whispers, forehead pressed against hers.

“Peter’s—he’s—he’s _gone_ , Rhodey,” Toni whimpers, “He disappeared from _my arms_.”

Rhodey’s fingers stroke her cheeks as he tells her, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Toni. We’ll fix it, okay? You and I and the others will—”

Something in her chills instantly, her crying stopping as abruptly as it had started.

“I don’t want to see him.” Toni’s tone is harsh and final, but Rhodey just nods and gets up to face the rest of their small group.

“Rogers, _out_. Get lost.”

“I’m not leaving until I speak to her.” Steve uses his Captain voice, the same one he’d used to tell her _Together_.

“You’re not going anywhere near her unless she agrees, and in case it wasn’t obvious already, she _does not_ agree.”

“Steve, let’s just give them space.” That’s Romanoff, playing referee like always.

The worst kind of referee. The kind that double deals you, stabs you in the back.

“Toni,” it makes the faceplate snap shut again, the anguished way in which he calls out her name, “I just want to talk. Can we do that, please?”

She stands up, but instead of moving towards him, Toni begins walking the opposite way— _away_ , away from him and the sad look on his face and the missing star on his chest.

“Toni, you can’t run away. I’m sorry about the kid, he—”

Another blast, purposefully aimed to go over his shoulder.

“ _Don’t_ ,” she grits out, and the tension is obvious even over the voice modulator, “say another word. Don’t you _dare_ talk about him.”

Steve’s expression is shocked, as if she’d really hit him with the repulsor.

Placatingly, he says, “Toni, we need to talk about what’s happened. What _is_ happening. The team needs you.”

His words make her recoil, take her by surprise. It only lasts a second though, and in the next, she’s striding purposefully towards him, unheeding of the way everyone else shifts nervously.

“The team? _The team?_ There _is_ no team, Rogers.” She’s close enough now to notice the ashen appearance of his skin, the way his eyes flicker over her new armor. “There stopped being a team the minute you lied to my face.” It’s vicious, almost as much as the ire boiling within her.

“Toni, come on. I said I was sorry.” His hands are raised almost to his shoulders, brow furrowed and tone pacifying. His whole demeanor screams _victim_ , and it incenses her further, that he thinks he needs to protect himself from her, that she knows he’s probably right.

Because she is _so_ angry she could set the world on fire.

Because he _lied_ , he betrayed her.

Because she found out about HYDRA’s helicarriers on her own.

Because he destroyed the home she built for them.

Because she can’t stop seeing them: her mother, Peter, Strange, Quill, her mother, Mantis, Drax, her mother, Howard, her mother her mother her mother.

“You know what? Fuck you, Rogers. I’m not doing this.”

She turns to go, starts walking away, but makes it only a couple of steps before his voice stops her.

“Bucky’s gone.”

It comes out overwhelmingly pained, like it was torn out of the depths of his soul, like it is as broken as the depths of hers.

Something else runs through her then, something equally as ugly and vile as the ire but sharper, less like a fist and more like a knife.

_He’s my friend_.

She thinks, unbidden, of the image of two soldiers, grinning side by side with their close-cropped hair, of the boundless devotion that transcends the sepia tones of the film.

Thinks of how there isn’t a single image like that of her and Steve.

Toni walks away.

This time, no one stops her. She isn’t sure what to say, isn’t sure she could say _anything_ in an appropriate tone of voice. However much she wants to, however long she spends trembling inside the suit, refusing to remove it, refusing to let her guard down, refusing to _lose control_ again, she stops herself from making it worse, from spreading out all the razor-edged shards of her for him to see, finally, _finally_ , how much she always wanted him, how badly he ruined her.

So Toni walks away, doesn’t look back, doesn’t see the lonely tear running down Steve’s face.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://demigodscum.tumblr.com/)


End file.
